A Hole in Time
by SandietheMafioso
Summary: The Odd Sea, by Frederick Reiken. “I think the strangest sketch I wrote was one in which he came back and found that no one wanted to believe he was still alive.” Ethan’s return as imagined by Philip.


A Hole in Time

Title: A Hole in Time

Author: sandiethemafioso

Rating: PG

Words: 4,100

Disclaimer: I do not own Frederick Reiken's _The Odd Sea_ or any of the characters, places, or events mentioned therein.

Summary: "I think the strangest sketch I wrote was one in which he came back and found that no one wanted to believe he was still alive." Ethan's return as imagined by Philip.

Author's Notes: This was written for class assignment in which I was called upon to recreate one of Philip's journal entries about Ethan. The story is in Ethan's point of view, but I tried to write in what I think of as Phillip's voice. It takes place sometime during Chapter 5, _The in-between place_.

_But inevitably, I find my brother waiting before a doorway. It doesn't matter what kind of doorway. The doorway changes every time I find it. He takes one sneaker off. The door appears. He senses he must go through. A hole in time will close quickly. A hole in time never appears in the same place twice. Who in this world would give up a chance to see the other side of everything? He drops his sneaker, steps through, and is gone._

_-from _The Odd Sea _by Frederick Reiken_

I stumble back onto the blue gravel road. It seems like such a long time ago that I took off my sneaker right here, moments before the doorway opened in front of me. Distracted, I left it behind. After looking for the shoe on the ground for a minute and not finding it, I remember that I left its partner behind me anyways. The thought makes me smile. One shoe in this world, one in the other. I shrug and head towards home.

My first few steps are confident, but then I slow down. What am I going to tell my family? I was gone for days. I can't say I was at Baker's Bottom Pond. For the first time since leaving, I feel a stab of remorse. They must have been so worried. I was too busy to consider the effect it must have had on them. My guilty mind creates a picture of my mother, sobbing over my discarded sneaker. And what about Melissa? I speed up my steps again. The best thing I can do now is get back fast and try to make amends.

Rounding the bend our house comes into view. It looks just the same as it always did and yet vaguely unfamiliar. I wonder if I've changed so much that this place seems different. Before I have time to really think this over, I see something that demands my attention even more- there's a strange girl playing basketball in our driveway. Her back is to me as she makes the shot, catches the rebound, and then sinks another. One of Halley's friends, maybe? I can't remember any girlfriends of hers who have dark hair. She swishes another shot into the basket.

I'm about to keep going towards the house when the ball rolls behind the girl. She turns to retrieve it and I see that she's no stranger. She's Dana. But she can't be Dana. This girl is too tall, too slim. But the face, the eternally watching expression, is the same.

Now that face is watching me. Not-Dana is standing motionless; still half crouched to pick up the ball. She's staring at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

I don't know what's going on, but I figure I should break the silence. "Dana?" I try.

Not-Dana breaks out of her trance and shrieks. Before I can take another step, she bolts into the house. Unsettled, I stand there for a minute, unsure how to proceed. Then I decide that there's nothing to do but go inside. My family is still in there, and I still have some explaining to do.

Not-Dana appears to have locked the door behind her. The spare key isn't under the mat. Philip must have forgotten to put it back again. The side door is open, though. When I step inside, I hear the sound of someone crying in the other room. I head towards the noise.

In the living room, my mother is sitting on the couch, in profile to the doorway. Not-Dana is sitting beside her, her face hidden in Mom's shoulder. Mom has her arms wrapped tight around the girl. Beside her is a paperback copy of _Rebecca_, open pages down on the arm of the couch, as though she had been interrupted while reading. She's making comforting noises and stroking the girl's hair.

"But Mom, I saw him!" she is sobbing. "I really thought I did. Oh God, I'm going crazy… I thought that this was… I thought that… oh God oh God oh God."

"Shhh, baby. Shhh. It's all right." Mom says. Not-Dana seems comforted, because she does shush, a little. That's when Mom senses someone else in the room. She looks at me, in a way that seems… longing, almost? I can't explain. That expression only lasts a second, though, before she winces and quickly looks away.

"It's going to be okay, Dana," she says to the person next to her, who I now have to accept is my sister, "You're not crazy. I see him sometimes, too." Her voice is tenser than it was before. Dana starts crying louder.

I clear my throat a little. No response. I try again. "Mom?" My mother keeps her eyes fixed at some point ahead of her. She seems determined not to look at me.

An icy dread settles in my stomach. Something is very wrong here.

I leave Mom and Dana and walk back to the front of the house, not sure what to do next, who to look for. The decision is taken out of my hands when I walk into the kitchen to see my father sitting at the table, his head bent over a newspaper.

"Dad?"

He begins to answer without raising his head. "What's up, Phil-" At that moment he looks up and sees me. "Oh," he says. His face looks as strange as Mom's did a minute ago. I'm about to say something when someones come in through the front door.

"Hey, anybody home?" Halley yells. Her body appears in the kitchen a moment after her voice does. Like Dana, she has changed. She's taller, older. With a start, I understand that Halley looks about the same age as me. She's looking at me, but not the same way Dad is. Her expression is more guarded.

Dad looks at Halley. "Hey, Hon," he says, his voice shaking ever so slightly. "How was your day?"

"Um, good. You?" Halley squints at me one more time, and then shifts her focus to Dad.

"Good, it was good."

Halley takes a seat at the table and they start making small talk, both of them sounding extremely nervous. I keep standing there, not sure what to do. Every once in a while Halley will glance at me as though she's checking to see if I'm still here, and then she'll look at Dad as though gauging his reaction. Dad doesn't look at me at all. I realize what's going on here- Dad thinks Halley doesn't see me here, and Halley thinks the same thing about Dad. They don't want to acknowledge me in case the other person thinks they're crazy. After I decide they're going to keep this up, I head for the empty dining room.

Sinking down into one of the chairs and rest my elbows on the table, I'm not sure what to think. What is going on here? I saw some strange things on the other side of that doorway. I expected that when I got back, home would be familiar; that going back to my old life would seem depressingly mundane. In the face of what I've found, mundane doesn't sound so bad. My family has changed, and I don't know how or why. Not only do they look different, but they won't talk to me- it's almost like I don't exist.

I remember something my guide said shortly after I came through the doorway the first time. _It gets confusing, _he had said, _because time flows differently on this side of things_. I hadn't taken heed of it at the time, but had this been another veiled warning? What if time really did move differently? What if while I was gone for those few days, years had gone by for everyone else?

It's a chilling thought.

I make a decision: I'm going to try to find Philip. I get this sudden irrational feeling that if anyone will listen to me, it's him. That thought firmly planted in my mind, I approach his open door. I hover just beyond it. He's sitting at his desk, his back to me. From this angle, I can see that he's taller than before, and his hair is longer.

"Philip?" I say. He pauses in whatever he's writing. Then he sighs and starts again. "Philip, it's me, Ethan."

"I know. I was just writing about you."

"That's, um, nice, I guess…"

"Is there something else you wanted me to write?" Philip asks. He still hasn't turned around. "Is that why you're here?"

"What are you talking about?"

"That's why I write, mostly, because of you. Sometimes it kind of feels like you're in my head, telling me what happens next."

"Why won't you look at me? Why won't anyone look at me?"

Philip taps his pen idly against the desk, his head still bent over the work in front of him. "It's because you're gone, Ethan. You've been gone for almost three years now, and I think at this point it's pretty obvious that you're not coming back."

"You think I'm dead, then."

The pen stops tapping. "No," Philip says, quieter than before. "I never thought that." There's a slight waver is his voice, as though he's close to tears. "But maybe it would be easier if I did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's what everyone else thinks. I'm the one who's hanging on, the one who always kept going. Mom, Dad, Halley, everyone else just got on with their lives. I didn't, Ethan. And maybe if I knew you were dead, I could."

What am I supposed to say to that? "If I'm dead, why are you still talking to me? How are we having this conversation?"

Philip shrugs and says "I still hear you all the time," as though hearing things was regrettable but pretty normal at this point.

I want to stay and try to convince him, but I know it's no use. He still sounds like he's about to cry. "Goodbye, Philip," I say. He doesn't respond. I turn around and walk away from my brother.

I head for the front door of the house. Philip's reaction has hit me harder than Halley's did. Philip and Halley had always been a team, a single unit. They're similar, but Philip is softer, more sensitive. It doesn't surprise me that Halley would have given me up for lost a lot sooner. Philip hasn't given me up, exactly… but he won't admit that I'm back, either.

While I've been mulling this over, my feet have taken me out the front door and onto the lawn. I figure they know as well as anyone what I should do next. An unfamiliar bicycle lying is lying on its side by the road, and I'm struck by inspiration. Melissa. Maybe whatever has happened to my family, or to me, hasn't affected her. Melissa loves me, right? She'll be happy to see me.

Before I can retrieve the bike, a car turns the corner and pulls into the driveway. I can only see the driver's silhouette through the tinted windows. Whoever it is turns the car off and then sits there for a long time. Curious, I wait. At last the driver's side door opens next to me and Amy steps out. Older Amy, of course, with nicer clothes and short-cropped, dyed hair. She is glaring at me, thin-lipped and furious.

"Amy, I need-" I start to say, before she interrupts me.

"No. There is just no _way_," she peers closer at me, "that this is happening."

"That what is happening? Amy what's-"

"Shut up!" she snaps. She brings a hand up to massage her forehead. "I'm going insane," she mutters to herself.

This is becoming familiar territory for me. "You're not going insane, I swear. It's me, it's Ethan. Just look at me. Amy, please…" She looks up but does not say anything. I continue. "I know I've been gone, but I'm back now and everything's going to be fine."

Amy snorts. "Everything's going to be fine? Everything is fine. Was fine, until I started seeing things. Unless…" she considers for a moment, looks me over again. Then she walks towards me and gives my shoulder a shove.

"Hey, what was that for?"

She ignores my protest. "You _are_ real." Amy chews on her lip for a moment. "Maybe you're just some asshole who looks like Ethan, a little bit, and it's just been so long I can't tell the difference. And let me tell you, that's an awful trick to play, so I suggest you get out of here before I get really pissed."

"Amy, it's not a trick, I'm your brother, please-"

"If you're Ethan," she cuts me off again. "How come you look sixteen? Ethan was sixteen when he disappeared. If you were really him, you would be older now. Explain that one." I open my mouth to do just that, but then she says, "Don't bother. You have about ten seconds to get off this property before I call the police."

I run across the lawn, grab the bike, hop on and ride away. What else can I do? As usual, Amy's logic is irrefutable, at least in her own eyes. She's so stubborn. It's one of the things I love about her, but right now, it's not good. As I ride away, there is only silence behind me. Maybe she figures now that I'm gone, there's no point in making a scene and involving the rest of the family. Who knows how she'll explain the disappearance of the bike.

It's a long ride to Cummington, and I'm sweating when I get to Moody Farm. The door to the house is unlocked, and at first, no one seems to be home. I tiptoe up the stairs and into Melissa's room. The lights are out. It's the same as I remember, at first, but then I see the little differences- new paintings on the walls, the position of the dresser shifted slightly, more books on the shelves. Time has passed here, too.

The lights are off and I am about to leave when I hear a noise from the bed. It's Melissa, she was here all along, napping. Like everyone else, she's changed, and yet she hasn't. I watch her sleep for a moment, and then lower myself down onto the bed. I lay down beside her, my head on her spare pillow, my face inches from hers. She's shifting in her sleep and making sounds like she's about to wake up.

"Melissa," I say. "Melissa, wake up. It's me, Ethan."

"Ethan?" She says, groggy. Then she opens her eyes and says, "No."

"What do you mean, 'no?' Who else would it be?"

Her eyes drift shut again. "Ethan's gone," she says, her voice hollow.

"No I'm not, I'm right here."

"No." Her eyelids are fluttering again, but she can't seem to focus on me. "Ethan's dead."

That stops me. Dead? She thinks I'm dead? Philip wasn't joking. I came pretty close, a few times on the other side of the doorway, but I'm very much alive.

"I'm not dead," I try. "I'm right here." As if to prove it to her, I lift my hand and rest it on her cheek. She doesn't move away, but her eyes close again and her brows furrow.

"This is a dream," she informs me. "It's always a dream. You'll be gone soon. You always leave." She yawns. "But it's all right, 'cause you're not… real."

At that, I draw my hand back, get up, and leave the room. By the time I reach the door, Melissa's breathing is slow and even again. She's fast asleep, and in a few hours, all she'll remember is a dream.

_You're not real._ The words cut deeper than any knife could. The worst part is I don't know whether or not they're true. The way everyone has been acting, it's clear they think I don't exist. Should I really be so quick to assume that they're all wrong? Maybe I am dead. I was never sure if I believed in an afterlife, but this could be it. Maybe there is no Heaven or Hell. Everyone who's dead just wanders around, lost and ignored, unable to fit themselves back into their old lives. But I never died, not that I remember. Did I? I can't be sure of anything anymore.

At first I go to leave the Moodys' house, but then I'm seized with the urge to see Melissa's studio again. I walk back through her bedroom, open the door, and step through. The bookshelf and mattress are where I remember them, but the easel and the scattered canvases have all changed. There's a finished painting on the easel, a portrait. Was she working on one of me, when I left? I don't think so. I turn on the light to get a better look.

With a start, I recognize the subject of the painting: Philip. My first reaction is a pang of jealousy- why is Melissa painting Philip? Not that she exclusively painted portraits of me, of course. But there's something sort of intimate about sitting while someone paints you. It was strange and a little upsetting to think of my brother up here, alone, with my girlfriend.

Studying the painting, I can see how I might have mistaken its subject for myself. Philip is older, almost the same age that I am- or the same age that I was. But it's not just years gone by that make Philip look older. There's a world-weary look to him. I don't know how Melissa managed to capture it, but when I look at the canvas, I see someone who has suffered, who has bent, but not broken, under unbelievable pressure. There's something else different about him. After a moment, I spot it. His eyes are green. Why would Melissa paint Philip with green eyes? There must have been some reason, but I can't begin to fathom it.

I need to get out of here, and quickly. I shut the lights and walk by Melissa, then stumble down the stairs and out the front door. I pick the bike up from where I dropped in on the lawn. There's one more place I have to go, one more person I have to see before I give this up.

When I knock on the door of the Stone Den, no one answers. Tori never leaves the door locked, so I pull it open and stick my head inside. "Hello? Anybody here?"

"Coming!" someone shouts from inside the cabin. It's a female voice, but it isn't Tori.

A moment later a small, neatly-dressed woman appears in the hall. "Can I help you?" She seems puzzled by my presence. Why wouldn't she be? I'm dead, after all.

"I'm looking for Victoria Rhone. She used to live here…"

"The old director of the school?" the woman asks. "She resigned almost two years ago."

"So she doesn't live here anymore?"

"No."

"Do you know where she is?"

"I think she moved out West somewhere… I'm not sure. I'm just in residence here. Maybe they would know at the main office?"

"Thanks. Yeah, I'll try that."

The woman studies me for a second. "You look familiar. Aren't you that-"

"No," I cut her off. "I'm nobody." Before she has a chance to say anything else, I turn around and leave.

I wander through the woods around the cabins. Tori must have gone back to Oregon. Maybe to Arthur. Whatever she went back to, it was a life that I wasn't part of. Before I left, I had had it with Victoria. I was angry at the way things had turned out, the way she had come between me and Mellisa. I was ready to write her out of my life forever. Now, coming back and realizing that I had been written out of hers, I realized just how wrong I'd been. No matter what had happened, Tori was my teacher, my friend. I needed her, now more than ever. And she was gone.

"No, Ethan," I correct myself, "you're the one who's gone." I look up from the ground and see that the Astro Cabin, where I had lived during my residency at the Cummington School, was off to my left. Having no better option, I walk towards it. For a moment I worry that someone would be here, a stranger like the one in the Stone Den. But when I get closer, I can somehow feel that the place is empty. There's something abandoned about it. I step in the door and yell "hello!" just to be sure. No answer.

It's cold inside. I walk over to the empty fireplace and lay a hand on the mantle. My knees feel wobbly. Afraid I'm going to fall or faint, I sit down with my back against the wall. It seems like a pathetic gesture, like admitting that I'm too weak to even bring myself to a chair. Still, I don't care enough to move. There's nothing to be ashamed of when there's no one to watch you. No one criticizes you when you're dead.

For the first time in all of this, I start crying. First it's just tightness in my throat and tears prickling at my eyes. My instinct is to suppress it, but then I remember that I'm alone, that there's no one who will care or even know if I cry. That thought is enough to send me over the edge into heaving sobs. My body is shaking and I'm wailing like a baby. It feels good to let loose like this, but there's still an evil little voice in my head saying _Cry as loud as you want, no one is going to hear you._

By the time I've stopped crying, I have pulled my knees to my chest and buried my head in them. I want to be at home, in my room. I imagine it. My mother will have heard me crying, and in a minute she'll come knock quietly on the door. She'll come in and sit down next to me on the bed and ask me what's wrong. I'll tell her, and it will be something stupid, like a class that I'm failing or a fight that I had with Melissa. She'll put her arm around me and tell me how it's all going to be all right. It's been years since I had a crying fit like this, but that's what she would always do.

The fantasy fades, and I'm still alone in the Astro Cabin. A fresh wave of sorrow rolls over me at the memory of my mother, but I can't cry any more. There's nothing left. I lie down on the floor, my cheek pressed to the cold wood. I close my eyes, exhausted. Even though I'm overwhelmed (or perhaps because of it) my mind begins to wander, and I find myself thinking about the days I spent on the other side of the doorway. Bright colors and pictures come vividly to my mind's eye. Despite some of the dangers I faced there, the entire experience is warm and glowing in my memory.

That's when the idea hits me- maybe I can go back. Maybe there's someone there who can fix this. I saw enough strange things there, why not someone who can turn back time? Something that will bring me back from the dead? Even if that's not possible, maybe I could just stay. When I first stepped through the doorway, I wasn't sure I would ever be able to come back. At the time, it seemed like a fair trade, leaving my old life behind for something more exotic. Not that I complained when it was time to come home. But now that home isn't what I remembered it to be, I'm starting to think that the other side of the doorway wouldn't be a bad place to spend the rest of my life. At least when I was there, I was a real person. I don't like the thought of leaving my family, but I'm nothing but a ghost to them now. Not pleasant, but true.

That's it, then. I'll just need to find another doorway. I'll start looking back on the road where I first came through. Maybe it only opens on a certain day or at a certain time. Or maybe it opens when some power senses that there's someone who needs to go through. It opened for me the first time, so that won't be a problem. Best to start in the right place, though, just to be safe. Back to the road, where I kicked off my sneaker and began all of this. Still thinking about my plan, I drift off to sleep.


End file.
